Assessment of the Regional Climate Model Version 3 over the Maritime Continent Using Different Cumulus Parameterization and Land Surface Schemes
Name
Gianotti-2012-Assessment of the Re.pdf
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Author(s)
Gianotti, Rebecca Louise
Zhang, Dongfeng
Eltahir, Elfatih A. B.
Date Issued
June 2011
Journal
Journal of Climate
Publisher
American Meteorological Society
Citation
Gianotti, Rebecca L., Dongfeng Zhang, and Elfatih A. B. Eltahir. “Assessment of the Regional Climate Model Version 3 over the Maritime Continent Using Different Cumulus Parameterization and Land Surface Schemes.” Journal of Climate 25.2 (2011): 638–656. © 2011 American Meteorological Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
This paper describes an assessment of the Regional Climate Model, version 3 (RegCM3), coupled to two land surface schemes: the Biosphere–Atmosphere Transfer System, version 1e (BATS1e), and the Integrated Biosphere Simulator (IBIS). The model’s performance in simulating precipitation over the Maritime Continent was evaluated against the 3-hourly Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis 3B42 product. It is found that the model suffers from three major errors in reproducing the observed rainfall histogram: underestimation of the frequency of dry periods, overestimation of the frequency of low-intensity rainfall, and underestimation of the frequency of high-intensity rainfall. Additionally, the model does not accurately reproduce the observed timing of the diurnal rainfall peak, particularly over land. These four errors persisted regardless of the choice of lateral boundary conditions, convective parameterization scheme, or land surface scheme. The magnitude of the wet–dry bias in the simulated volumes of rainfall was, however, strongly dependent on the choice of the convection scheme and lateral boundary conditions. The Grell convection scheme with Fritsch–Chappell closure was the best performing of the convection schemes, having the smallest error magnitudes in both the rainfall histogram and average diurnal cycle, and also having good representation of the land surface energy and evapotranspiration components. The 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40) was found to produce better simulations of observed rainfall when used as lateral boundary conditions than did the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis. Discussion of the nature of the major model errors is provided, along with some suggestions for improvement.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Parsons Laboratory for Environmental Science and Engineering (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1175/jcli-d-11-00025.1
